Obesity in Today’s World

Over 176,500 young adults under 20 years old have one form of diabetes. One in every 400 to 600 children has type one diabetes, according to the National Diabetes Statistics Web site. Diabetes is just one of obesity related health problems among children and adults. Obesity also causes other health problems such as hypertension, heart attacks and high cholesterol. In 2004 obesity related deaths ranked number two, smoking came in first. By 2005 obesity related deaths was expected to pass smoking as the number one cause of death, according to Medscape.com.

One of the reasons why obesity is on the rise is, the idea of an American family and dinner time has changed. Americans lead busy lives, in a typical family home, both parents work a forty hour week, most arriving home late. Those families would rather relax than think about making a well balanced meal for everyone. It is usually easier to pick up the phone and order carry out or a pizza. We all want to spend time with our families and watch our favorite TV program. The last thing anyone wants to think about is cooking after a long day at the office.

Often eating out is cheaper than making a home cooked meal. You can go to McDonald’s and feed a family of four for fewer than twenty dollars. It is fast, easy and cheap. To feed a family of four a balanced meal, for example chicken with rice and a vegetable, costs more in both time and money. Foster Farms offers three chicken breasts in a package for around $9.00 at a local Fred Meyer here in Oregon. You would have to buy two in order to feed a family of four. One package of Uncle Ben’s instant wild rice only has two to three servings per container for $2.50 which means again you would have to buy two packages. For a bushel of broccoli can range in price from $1.00 per pound. Once you go to the grocery store, come home and make all this food, you evening is gone and so is over twenty dollars.

Lack of health choice at restaurants makes eating right difficult. According to Foodfacts.info, in 2005 fast food chain, Wendy’s, pulled their fruit salad option after only ten months on the menu, sighting low sales. Many fast food chains have started to offer healthier choices such as Subway which offers raisins and yogurt, and Wendy’s offers mandarin orange fruit cups in place of fries. Some sit down restaurants have followed suit such as Red Robin which will allow you to order either a petite hamburger patty or a Boca Burger substitute for any of their burgers. Unfortunately other places do not offer alternatives or the alternatives are not well advertised by the prospective restaurant. Red Robin might offer a Boca patty substitution but it is in fine print which is barley visible at the very bottom of their menu.

When eating out, often you do not have control over the serving sizes. For instance at McDonald’s, e medium fry package now has nutritional facts listed on the side. It shows how many calories are in that amount of fries along with the sodium content. What they are not taking into account is the amount of salt added to the fries after cooking, and the person filling the container usually over fills. Therefore the nutritional facts and serving size information provided is inaccurate.

As adults we need to set a good example for our youths. Children see how much their parents eat and they think this is the right amount of food for them. If you are always taking your children to McDonald’s because you simply don’t want to cook all you are doing is setting them up for to then be obese. Gastric bypass surgery is the second only to breast augmentation, as the most common surgery among young adults. The time is now for us to start setting a good example for all people and start making smarter choices of food, make the effort to cook healthy meals, and rethink what a serving size is.

Weight Loss and Income Level

Obesity rates among the poor reached a 147% increase in 2002 obesity according to medicinenet.com. This made those at the poverty level the fastest growing obesity group. Being obese for those at the poverty line is due to make circumstances which are out of their control. Some of the more common reasons why this group is so obese can be attributed to lack of exercise, food choices and no access to health food stores or supermarkets.

Living in government assisted housing, commonly known as “projects” is something many of the impoverished live in everyday. The projects are home to gangs, shootings, and other more serious crimes. Many children and families report this as the number one reason they do not get out an exercise. Projects often do not have playgrounds, sidewalks or lawns where families or children can play. If there is a playground near by often it is a central meeting place for gangs and gang activity, again making it a less than ideal hang out for children or individuals looking for a place to exercise.

Food stamps and other food assistance programs are available to those who need financial help. However, trying to eat healthy on food stamps is near impossible. Often those who use foods stamps have many mouths to feed and they need to stretch the money as far as it will go. The Department of Human Services suggests buy cheap staple foods. Some of which are macaroni and cheese, Cup O’Noodle and other starches such as pasta. A cheap and easy dinner might be Hamburger Helper which is extremely unhealthy but food stamp shoppers don’t care, as long as it is food in the table to feed their families.

Often poor families do not buy organic foods and other food substitutes such as Egg Beaters or tofu as they are too expensive and food stamps generally do not cover expensive items when there are other alternatives such as real eggs. Many times low income families don’t even bother with a grocery list of items as there are no grocery stores anywhere near their homes and lugging $400.00 worth of groceries on a bus alone is not easy. Many do not buy fresh fruits or vegetables since one they can not afford to buy fresh produce every week and two there is no where in the inner city to buy these items.

Large cities such as New York, Chicago or LA have health foods stores on every corner and large supermarkets going up everyday, however this is all happening in the suburbs not in the inner city. Many project tenets go grocery shopping at Circle K’s or Quickie Marts since they are close to their homes. Buying fresh vegetables and fruits, food alternatives such as Egg Beaters and tofu are not at things someone can buy at the local Circle K. Sciencedaily.com reports one of the leading reasons for obesity among the poor is lack of grocery stores in their neighborhoods. There are no farmers markets offering organic produce or health food stores with tofu, these people get what they can at corner markets.

Being poor is no reason to let your health suffer. However when it comes to trying to better yourself or become more healthy, the odds are defiantly against you if you are in the low income bracket. It has become more important then ever to take care of yourself regardless of your income level. The rising costs of health care are not going down, and by being obese you are not part of the solution.

Fast Food Bank Aims to Win Over Junk Eaters

Junk food can rightfully take its place as one of the many causes of overweight and obesity, not because it’s necessarily bad, but because people, especially children, are eating it too often.

The main problem isn’t even so much the junk food itself, but the lack of time for food preparation that sees stressed parents picking up or ordering in, instead of cooking. But as Jamie Oliver says, there is really no faster “fast food” than home-prepared food, because it takes longer to go and get or wait for purchased meals than it does to throw something exciting together in your own kitchen.

As well as home-cooked meals being faster than “fast food”, they can pack a flavour punch that the junk is seriously short on. And with families under the pump with rising food costs, learning to knock up superb meals in just minutes can shred the family food bill and give the children in the family a true health advantage.

Yes, home-cooked food wins on all points – but of course you have to know how!

From small beginnings, a new Australian web site hopes to help parents world wide to gain confidence preparing fast food at home by starting a “fast food bank” where people can freely upload their own favourite healthy fast food recipes and share others.

To be included on the site each recipe must pack a great flavour punch, must be 100% healthy, and must be prepared in 30 minutes or less. Look out for “Eastern Turkey Wrap with Tabouleh” – it’ll set your taste buds zinging just reading about it!

FastFoodBank.com is part of the Kind Communities Initiative, with a mission of giving families everything they need to support individual and family health and well-being, to drive down rates of overweight, obesity, diabetes and depression and give them their lives back in an overly hectic world.

Obesity and 10 Major Health Related Risks

Obesity is a condition that afflicts people all over the world. Why is it called a con dition? Well, it leads to many other health conditions that can be debilitating or deadly. In other words, the health problems associated with obesity are numerous and nothing to sneeze at. Take this into consideration: Someone who is overweight by 40% is two times more likely to die than someone who is of an average weight.

Doctors will tell you that a person is more likely to have health problems if they are obese than someone who is an average weight. Even someone who is 20% overweight can benefit from losing a little bit of poundage. The experts say that anyone overweight by 20% of their healthy body weight should lose some weight. If they don’t then there are some risk factors to consider:

Heart disease and stroke.

Both of these can be deadly and lead to heart attack or a stroke that can leave a person in a vegetative state.

High blood pressure

Which can lead to stroke and other health problems.

Diabetes

Which can lead to other health issues. Some people have lost legs, feet, and other extremities because of diabetes.

Different forms of cancer can come about.

There is not one known form of cancer that is specific to obese individuals because an obese individual becomes more susceptible to any form of cancer.

Gallbladder disease, gall stones, and kidney stones.

These are painful conditions that can lead to other problems.

Gout

a painful condition that no one really wants.

Osteoarthritis

This can restrict a person’s movement even more than they are already restricted being obese. It is also very painful and debilitating.

Breathing issues such as sleep apnea.

A person with sleep apnea stops breathing for short periods in their sleep. Some have been found to stop breathing completely.

Blood clots are common in those who are obese.

These blood clots form in the legs. They can eventually move to other places of the body such as the lungs, which results in a pulmonary embolism.

It is even said that obesity increases the risk that someone will develop Alzheimer’s, which is a condition that no one wants to ever have to deal with.

There are other factors that can make an obese individual more susceptible to these conditions. However, susceptibility doesn’t mean that the disease has to be dealt with. Those with an apple shaped body are more susceptible to these health risks. It also doesn’t help them much if there is a family history of these diseases or if there are pre-existing medical conditions.

However, losing weight can reduce the risk. A person shouldn’t say things such as, “Well, my family has a history of it anyway.” Your family may have a history, but weight gain could be the one trigger that causes the onset of that condition. That is why it is important to lose weight.

Doctors say that losing as little as 10 to 20 pounds packs substantial health benefits. Cholesterol levels and blood pressure can be lowered. The risk of heart disease and stroke can also be lowered. Heart disease and stroke is the number one killer of people who are obese. Just a small amount of weight loss an take you farther away from being a statistic. It is all a matter of not being that person who believes they are the exception to the obesity rule. Eventually, everyone who is obese for long periods of time will experience one of the health risks.

Is Losing Weight Ever Easy?

Being overweight or obese is harmful to those who suffer from it, because it lowers self-esteem, increases chances of health risks and makes a person have a hard time performing physical activities. There really is no such thing as a perfect and easy weight loss system. There are however, a number of systems that have been proven to help lose weight healthily.

You only have to look online to see the number of easy weight loss ystems available but what most people forget to mention is how important the individual losing the weight is! Before you decide on how you intend to lose weight you need to decide if it is for your benefit; i.e. to remain healthy, or is it because someone else wants you to lose weight.

Many factors affect how well your weight loss program will go including how much physical activity you have during a normal day, the type of food you eat, how many meals you have and when those meals are eaten. Don’t be too ambitious and set yourself impossible tasks like losing 30 pounds in less than a month; this is not sensible because it can have a vast impact on the entire body bringing about other health problems like anemia or heartburn.

For you to lose a pound each and every week, all you have to do is lessen the amount of food you eat or exercise enough to lose 500 calories each day. Junk food, even though eaten by most people far too much, can be consumed now and then, and you should not have to give up every type of food you enjoy, just be conscious on the amount and the frequency it is consumed.

Another factor, more subtle than the others, is how you react to stress and problems. Some people tend to eat when they feel insecure or depressed. Problems occur when medical conditions arise from overeating, like diabetes, which is on the increase, but we must not forget other diseases like cancer, heart conditions, stroke, and elevated blood pressure. Many weight loss programs don’t give importance to the psychological factor, that is why they do not work, but you have to go beyond planning and find the real cause of a metabolic imbalance.

Studies have shown that people who have started weight loss programs with a light-hearted determination are more likely to accomplish the looked-for results. The one thing that has shown to be true no matter what you do in life is that being positive about something is more likely to make it happen. The great thing about weight loss is the extra energy you feel and how much more positive your outlook is to life in general, which obviously has an impact on your self-esteem as well.

Losing weight is as much about changing your mental attitude and your lifestyle habits by lessening your food intake. There are other aspects of weight loss that most self-proclaimed easy weight loss systems almost never address.

I have a program designed around one of the most important components of weight loss that is seldom even mentioned in most diet plans and yet without it, your weight loss efforts are like pushing a boulder up a hill. My Weight Loss Breeze program really can put the ‘easy’ back into easy weight loss.

Warm regards,

Christian Goodman

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